1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an infant incubator having a function of controlling temperature environment in an infant chamber for holding an infant.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-114351, filed May 18, 2012, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related art
In order to protect and grow an infant in most appropriate environment dividing from external air, in an infant incubator, an infant chamber is ventilated by an air-conditioning equipment filtering the external air so as to absorb into the infant incubator, and air is circulated as heated by heater equipment so as to maintain temperature environment in the infant chamber. Action of the air-conditioning equipment should be quiet in order not to stress the infant.
In the infant incubator, in order to maintain the inside of the infant chamber hygienically, the heater equipment should be also maintained hygienically not only the inside of the infant chamber. Therefore, it is necessary to clean and disinfect the inside of the infant chamber and also the heater equipment. However, since the heater equipment is attached to the infant incubator, the structure in the infant incubator is complicated. Therefore, it is hard to clean and disinfect, so that there is a burden of cleaning and disinfection on an operator.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. H10-165461 (hereinafter, “Patent Document 1”), unitized heater equipment (i.e., a heater assembly) is suggested so as to detach the heater equipment easily from the infant incubator. However, even though the heater equipment is unitized as disclosed in the Patent Document 1, it is necessary to clean and disinfect in a state in which the heater equipment is detached. Therefore, the burden on the operator is still big.
Consequently, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2001-70368 (hereinafter, “Patent Document 2”), an apparatus in which a heater formed by wounding heater wires into a coiled-state is rotatably held with respect to a bottom plate at a base-end portion thereof is suggested.